Ari had a little less activity this week, than last, and that's probably a good thing. It's been great to see and introduce her to everyone, but we don't want her to get overwhelmed; babies do need a lot of downtime and rest!

She's still been very social this week, visiting the Elmgrens, meeting Kerry for her and Ania's weekly lunch, visiting with Marlena. She also went to San Francisco for the first time, for brunch with Taylor, Rossy, and Christian.

Milestones & Metrics

• First visit to San Francisco.
• How Arianna looks this week:
• The big news this week is that Ari spent her first night (16 Nov 2007) in her crib!

  • It's been very pleasant and reassuring to have her in her bassinet, right beside our bed, but she's on the cusp of outgrowing it, and we want to get her accustomed to her crib early on. For one thing, we don't want her to be terribly conscious of the transition, so she doesn't interpret it as something negative. We want her to have a strong sense of independence, with a foundation in the reassurance of our presence and love.

    I'm sure that just as finessing the transition of a baby on the verge of sleep from being held to being put down, this transition isn't an exact science, where the same thing applies to each baby. It's great to have lots of books and advice, but this is what felt right for us. I remember being almost shocked — perhaps even judgmental; that's so easy to do, before you've been a parent — when a neighbor recently mentioned when they made the transition at some time before ten weeks. I thought that was so early. That was, of course, before I had my own baby. And now here we are doing it at seven weeks!

    To prepare for this transition, we began early on to include the crib — where she enjoys observing her mobile and wiggling — in the rotation of locations to which we've exposed her to being without one of us holding her. The bouncy seat, swing, floor entertainment center, and blanket, are others, and she's happy to enjoy each for varying amounts of time.

    

    We also got a video baby monitor. We initially put off getting a monitor, because I knew I wanted to research video monitors, and hadn't yet done so. In the interim, we used a cool hack I found on Parent Hacks: use your mobile phone as a baby monitor, which worked really well. The video monitor was worth the wait, though, and I highly recommend one. It really lets you relax — after you learn to not simply sit and watch it — since you can visually get a sense of the situation, and evaluate whether or not you need to physically go to the baby. Many noises are deceptive, and often don't convey as much as information as video. I'd give the one we got, the Bebe Sounds Portable Color Video and Sound Monitor, a B+. The only negative is it has a bit more static than I'd like. It's not constant, nor enough to return it, but that's its one minor weakness. That's far outweighed by its benefits, though, and its night vision feature is excellent!

    What we didn't think to prepare for was how it would be for us to not have her right there next to us. Wow, it's surprising how quickly we've gotten used to enjoying having her right there with us, and how much it tugs at us to have her further away. This transition was probably a much bigger deal for us than for Arianna. Despite the video monitor, Ania ended up taking a blanket and pillow and spending the first night in the nursery with Ari. She wanted to be sure herself that Ari would be ok, and to make sure her baby knew she was there for her. I couldn't think of a sweeter way to reassure Ari that we'll never be far.

    Update: Ari's doing great, and seems quite happy sleeping in her crib! We're doing well with it too, and happy to have passed this milestone so smoothly.